Saturday, December 15, 2012

#YOLOSWAG: The billion-isk bomber

EDIT: This post is also out of date. There's a current one, but I can't be arsed to find the link to it at this time.

Please note that this is purely a proof-of-concept post, and I do not in any way endorse or guarantee the ships, fits, or methods used herein. It is definitely not meant for people who don't already know what they are doing.

That said, I have found a way to make dps bombers work in ninja exploration post-retribution. Make of it what you will.

Introduction:

You know what they say: If at first you don't succeed, pile on deadspace shit until it works. Following that piece of advice is what led me to warp a stealth bomber with fittings worth, yes, nearly a billion isk, into a deadspace complex.

The plan was to do the same thing as the first time I tried, but with a stronger tank (more and better hardeners). And it worked; Running the 7/10 and 8/10, I never dropped below about two-thirds shields. The 6/10 should be no issue, and the only tricky bit in the ladar hacking site is a tackling frigate and two jamming cruisers. If I were to do that one, I would probably take those out first thing.

Happily, when everything switches to the bomber that includes jamming ships, so the tengu doesn't get jammed while the bomber needs RR. Just make sure everything with ewar on it is dead before they start switching back, because they do split fire.

Also of note, ships which do not aggro on warpin won't automatically all target the bomber when it comes in. This makes the 8/10 (and the 6/10) incredibly easy.

Fits:

Note: Using an afterburner instead of a MWD means that you will have a hard time getting away from a sabre if it lands on a gate at the same time as you. Good luck with that.

Note: You could replace the extender rig with something else; it's there because the bomber's shield buffer was smaller than the tengu's RR and I didn't know what to expect. You could totally do a damage mod and switch the ee-601 for an ee-603. You actually get more DPS out of it that way than my pre-retribution fit (albeit at slightly higher cost).

Note: The shield regen here is reading 50% low because pyfa doesn't apply skills to projected effects. 600 is still pretty low, but the bomber has one-quarter the sig radius of a tengu so things works out fine.

Note: The expensive mods on the tengu are mostly for lols. You can get away with probably a 900 dps tank just fine, it just means you sometimes have to use the afterburner to reduce incoming dps.

Note: I got away with no inertia stabilizers because of my nomad set. You probably want at least one.

Note: It might might very well be possible to remove the ECCM mod and replace it with a damge control or istab or something, if you're comfortable with the mechanics.

So, basically:

1. Use those fits.
2. Warp the tengu in and kill frigates.
3. Warp the bomber in. It orbits the tengu with AB on, tengu puts RR on it, they kill shit.
4. Die a horrible death.

Epilogue:

I did what I set out to do, and now it's time for me to GTFO from exploration for good. The ships I used here have already been torn apart and put on the market.